Thursday, March 22, 2007

In his recent Fox News article (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260267,00.html) he described the event where Target allowed their Muslim cashiers to either wear gloves or shift them to other positions, so that they wouldn't come in contact with pork.

While such a belief is certainly quite absurd to me, I fail to see how Target's reaction to it was a result or example of Political Correctness. This term is more often used to describe laws and mandates.

Mr Cavuto does attempt to give a non-governmental and a purely business challenge to this "pandering": it will offend customers. How so Mr Cavuto? Why does a customer care who rings up their groceries as long as it is done quickly and accurately? Why would a customer care if they have a Muslim stocking the shelves in apparel rather than handling pork products? The reassignment did not cause Target loss of their "financial goals". I would argue that them "pandering" to the employees will only result in higher retention and less turn-over. Which what Target was struggling with in the first place.

As to his final conclusion that we "live in a multi-cultural world where we attempt to blend, not stand out" gives me images of rows of brown shirts with identical hair cuts and boots. Standing in perfect line waiting for the leader to tell them what direction the world needs to move. In many aspects, I'm certainly not a minority. But in others, I do make sure I stand out. I'd rather be seen as an individual than a bland node in some kind of a cultural collective.

Friday, March 2, 2007

With all the apologies to those other "Christians" who also disagree with the person I'm writing to.

Bonni Alba, a self-described "politically incorrect" researcher-writer wrote the following column decrying the placement of "In God We Trust" on the side of the new dollar coin. http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/alba/070301However, I'm not going to even address the ridiculous assumptions she makes about how this will devastate the country. Rather, I'm going directly to the source of this type of belief: The utter insistence that our survival depends on the acknowledgement of God by the society as a whole.

Below I will present the email I sent to her:

Dear Bonnie,

I would like to address some faulty assumptions that you have expressed in your recent column.

First faulty assumption, would is that God actually exists. This seems to allow the second faulty assumption, which is that God actually somehow has influence over us, or this country. Yes, many founders did believe that there actually was a "god" or that it might actually have some influence over us. But the best learned ones had the biggest doubts of god and its influence. However, what the current right-wing theocrats like you want to do is criminalize the non-believers, or--when secular equal protection still remains for it--cast them to the fringes of society and allow the 'moral majority' to have their way with them in civil discourse, such as employment, housing, and exclusion from organizations such as charities. There are already examples of rational people being excluded simply for not believing.

I will ensure that my son will see your religion for the irrational superstition that it is. I will also provide him with the means to counter any attack, physical or verbal, that you might throw at him when he goes to school or participates in other communal activities. There is no reason why his rationality should force him to be excluded from the community or cause him to silence his objections to clear irrationality. Yes, he will be well equipped to deal with absolutists like yourself who place religious dogma above science.

Since you are politically-incorrect yourself, I'm sure you will not find any of this offensive.